


Polish, Jewish, and Proud

by dalekanim



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Disturbing Themes/Situations, Historical Hetalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 11:51:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10189310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalekanim/pseuds/dalekanim
Summary: A weary and battered Poland, looking for inspiration to keep fighting, visits a stubborn and somewhat nihilistic Polish Jew during WWII.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this one for a while-I first wrote it November of 2014. I've been very hesitant to post it.
> 
> **Be warned, it has some very heavy topics in it, including character death and very graphic situations that, unfortunately, are very characteristic of a WWII prison camp, murders and all.**
> 
> This was originally written for a humorous prompt on the Hetalia Dreamwidth forums, if you'll believe it. The prompt asked for a short one-shot of a male (whether canonly, genderbent, or otherwise) nation visiting a soldier on their deathbed, much to the soldier's shock and surprise, and the soldier is rather taken aback that the nation isn't a lovely young maiden, as popularized and romanticized in songs and history books.
> 
> I kept the theme of a nation visiting a soldier on their deathbed, but took the definitions rather liberally; instead of a soldier who fought on the battlefield, a weary and battered Poland, looking for inspiration to keep fighting, visits a stubborn and somewhat nihilistic Polish Jew imprisoned in a death camp during the second World War.

He is dying.

Not yet—his body is still functional—but it is obvious; he can read it in the lines of the buildings, the wired fences, the drawn and weary faces. No one is meant to survive this place.

He wants to be gone already, but he does not want to die. Death is a painfully long ordeal within the walls of this place. Although, he muses to himself, he is not sure the alternative is much better--hanging above the chasm of death by a thread isn't his choice of a way to go. He is dead, but his arms and legs still work, and—if he works up the courage to try to hold his breath—his lungs stubbornly suck in another breath of air after a minute.

Evidently, his brain has a different agenda than his heart.

He doesn't want to work, but his body all-too-eagerly betrays him. Each morning, he steels himself to stay in bed, to refuse to move, to just give up; he knows if he does he will eventually be deemed useless and granted death, but as soon as he convinces himself to stay put, he is frightened. His limbs rebel against him. He gets up, he walks outside, and breathes in the acrid air. Sour, but better that than the stench in the barns (he refuses to call them barracks; they are not worth a word associated with resistance or military, or even with an honor in being prisoner). He takes his place along the wall outside, and when the morning sun throws the bleak landscape into sharp relief, he turns sharply to the left and walks to the fields.

There, he is not a person, but a tool--the men overseeing are people. He is not, according to them. He has his own thoughts on the matter, but he has learned the rules of this hell. Speak up and you die--and, given his body's stubbornness, that might be a while yet.

The day is deceptively pleasant. A breeze jogs lazily across the land, brushing the corners of collars with an air of delicacy as it passes. The sun plays hide-and-seek with the clouds and he eyes the birds chirping as they fly to land on the fence.

You have it lucky, he thinks, eyeing a bird that chances its way toward him. You're alive--your wings will carry you.

The bird tilts its small head, eyeing him warily with beady, black eyes, as if expecting him to wave a hand out at it, should it get too close. Even if he bothered, he doubted he could do so without falling over from lack of coordination.

Something hits the back of his leg—before it hurts, his senses seem to crowd around the sensation, and his reaction is delayed while his mental faculties try to parse the information.

Before he can accomplish the dense mental task, a sharp voice rings out. The speaker is quick, though, and he doesn't make out the words. He doesn’t speak much German. He understands more Polish, but doesn’t even speak much Polish with any degree of fluency, either. So, he sits in the mud and stares uncomprehendingly at the man bearing down on him.

The man—a guard—says something else with an air of exasperation, and mutters something that certainly doesn’t sound kind and makes a standing motion.

_ No. I won’t stand up. _ He quickly resolves to sit there in the mud. He has already committed a travesty by getting up this morning, and he’s been working on his courage. Perhaps this time his body will obey.

A fist swings toward his head and connects roughly with his skull; he falls over, and there’s another blow to his ribs (a boot this time, and he can feel the steel toe dig in next to his spine). Before he knows it, his body has decided to stand—or attempt to, he finds, as he scrambles and slides in the mud. His left leg seems abnormally uncooperative. Maybe his body has, in parts, begun to submit to his goal of giving up? he thinks absentmindedly.

His thoughts are interrupted by a pair of hands grabbing his shoulders. He’s yanked into the air, and his arms are looped over the man’s neck in a laughable mockery of standing, but with his left leg dangling uselessly, it’s the best he can manage. The man begins walking, and he hops awkwardly after him.

“Gh… Gdzie przejd’z mnie?” he stammers after they’ve walked to the edge of the field. Goodness, his Polish is rusty--but not as bad as his German.

The man glances at him, looking vaguely surprised, then says something that sounds like “lekash.”

Unfortunately, that isn’t a word in his lexicon (or so he thinks—he couldn’t hear it quite clearly), so he nods knowingly and stays silent as they walk past the edge of the field, past a few buildings, and turn past the long line of barrac— _ barns _ , he reminds himself forcefully.

“Ehm… Doktor, wenn du verstehst Deutsch,” the man says unexpectedly.

He doesn’t understand the rest of it, but he manages to make out the “doktor.” Doctor? Was he going to get medical treatment for his leg? He was a little surprised—he had seen only teenagers and younger men receive medical treatment. A man of his age was usually shot. (His mind flickers momentarily to a vision of himself before a firing squad; if only they would grant him a death that quick and final.)

“Hier,” the man says gruffly, inclining his head toward a squat building made of stone. He shouts something and kicks the door lightly.

He stiffens, a sudden wave of panic shooting through his body.  _ Wait. Wait, I don’t know if I want a doctor! I don’t know if I want to be well! Why fix me up, then kill me!? _

The door swings open faster than he’d like it to. A man leaning on a cane stands there, an unreadable expression on his face. His eyes, however, look almost amused as he takes in the scene—a skinny shrimp of a man hanging onto the guard like a lifeline, his eyes wide and frightened. The mystery man’s face relaxes, and the corners of his lips twitch upward.

“Wilkommen,” says the man. Welcome.

He doesn’t exactly trust his ears—what about a doctor at a death camp would convey  _ welcome _ ? He finds himself shuffled over the threshold anyway, and he doesn’t know what he’s expecting in this next room, but he finds it disappointingly barren. Pristine, sterile white tile flooring and a line of hospital beds greet him along one wall. The guard who escorted him helps him over to one and shoves him up onto the mattress--no sheets, he notes.

“Danke,” the man—presumably the doctor?—says, and nods to the guard.  _ Dismissed, _ he seems to say; his authority is clearly not meant to be questioned. The guard snaps his heels together, nods briskly, and stalks back out the door.

The man doesn’t turn back around immediately, and Alojzy is painfully aware of the deafening silence that pervades the room. He shifts uncomfortably on the bed.

The man—doctor?—turns around with an almost shockingly out-of-place, gentlemanly smile; this place is anything but cheery, so the effect, which Alojzy is sure is intended to reassure him, only makes him more nervous.

“Was angeschlagenst du?”

It takes a moment to register. “Was?”

“Was ist falsch?” What is wrong?

“Mein Bein.” My leg. He answers automatically without thought; again, his body doesn’t offer him much choice in the matter.

“Ah. Das ist nicht gut.” The man’s face drops into a serious-business sort of expression, and he sets his cane against the bed. “Ich habe nicht viel Zeit,” he says, enunciating his words slowly. I don’t have much time. “Kannst du es bewegen?” Can you move it?

He tries. His leg stubbornly sits there. “Nicht.”

“ _ Nein _ ,” the man corrects him, before leaning forward and tugging at his trousers leg. Alojzy notices for the first time that there is blood staining the cloth.

“Zieh deine—” the man begins, but Alojzy can’t make out the rest of the sentence, so the man ignores him and simply gestures at his waistband. He jumps, but shifts his weight and allows the pants to fall off. The strange man takes hold of his foot and turns it this way and that while shouting something in quick German.

Another man walks up, in the same sort of guard uniform as his earlier escort.

The man clutching his foot lets out a long, quick string of German, but all Alojzy caught was "leg" and "walk." The uniformed man nods briefly, and the man stands back.

“Ich bin fertig essen Mittag,” he said. “Eile.” Hurry.

Alojzy finds himself lifted up again, and the guard hauls him across the room and out the door. He glances back; the man offers him another brief smile before turning away.

The air tastes bitter outside, and he sees a line of darker clouds on the horizon. Maybe it will rain.

He’s pushed and pulled along, the guard nowhere near as attentive to him as his original escort. He thinks about talking, asking where he’s going; something tells him it won’t be as well-received this time.

He finds himself dragged past the front of the place; he glances around the tall fences and brick train station. There’s a train sitting there, dormant. He remembers when he first set foot through the gates, the smell of ash and fear shooting straight through his nostrils and into his heart.

There’s not much to be afraid of here, he thinks. Not anymore, at least. You fear death at first; once you are here, you are already dead.

He’s thrown quite suddenly into the back of a truck. The guard yells something, and a few minutes later, he feels the vibrations of the engine beneath him.

He feels a strange disconnect. His body appears calm and relaxed, but his heart is pounding; the truck bed seems surreal. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realizes with a hint of amusement that he doesn’t have pants on. There are a few other people in the truck—mostly women. No one speaks.

This stretches on for what seems to be an eternity. He has no idea where he is going; it’s clear by now he isn’t getting medical treatment.

Maybe, by some stroke of luck, the guards have given up on him so he doesn’t have to.

They stop outside a stout building. A guard yells something, and the women must understand him, because they all start shuffling out. He follows suit; one of the women, an older woman, can see he can’t stand, and she offers her arm. He takes it gratefully, hopping down awkwardly on one leg.

There’s a crowd of people, mostly young and elderly, women, children, and he sees many people sitting on the ground—like him, they’re unable to stand.

He blinks, taking in the sight of so many people, and he wonders if he’s being transferred to some sort of civilian unit. Many haven’t received uniforms yet. The smell of ash is stronger here; the woman helping him nudges him forward, and they join the crowd.

They sit.

He thinks of nothing as he almost lazily turns his head; he hasn’t gotten a break to sit for this long in weeks. It takes a while, but slowly, the crowd shrinks as more and more people are led into the building; he watches the tired, nervous faces in a daze, with a bleak indifference. They will learn, no doubt, that there is no need to be nervous here; they were dead the moment they stepped off the train. He coughs; his breath feels erratic, but he chalks it up to the smoky air.

He doesn’t wait for the guard to point to him; he nudges the woman next to him and they both stand up, gingerly craning their necks to work the tension out of their muscles. He takes her arm, and she helps him stumble to the building and through the door.

People are taking off their clothes. A brief flash of relief shoots through him. He’s grateful he isn’t wearing pants now; his leg is starting to hurt, and taking off pants would have been highly unpleasant.

A woman runs up to him and yells. “Sie gehen, um uns zu töten!  _ Wir werden in Asche verwandelt werden! _ ”

He can’t understand her; she goes on and on in German. The woman next to him tenses; she turns away, her lips drawn into a tight, thin line as she slowly and calmly divests herself of her socks and shawl. There’s almost a dignity in the way she slowly drops each piece of clothing onto the ground with fingers curled into claws.

The yelling woman has left four long scratches down her own face when she is seized and frog-marched out of the room. He has seen many people break down like that, unfortunately, since they are the ones who fight the inevitable grim reaper without knowing they have already passed Death’s doorstep.

He, and everyone else in the room, is dead.

They are finished undressing. Signs inform them of what is to come, but he doesn’t pay any attention. His vision is blurred, his head is pounding, and he feels as if he is floating.

They walk down a set of stairs into a small, windowless room. He blinks, the only rational bit of his mind left informing him that this cannot be good and that he should run. The rest of him, the bloody little reliable traitor he is, slumps against the wall. People cry out, children yell, and old men groan as they squish against the walls, trying to make room. He is uncomfortably reminded of the train ride; for a moment, he is choking under the stifling weight and heat of bodies, many dead from starvation and others the same as he—dead but functioning—as his sister looks on with empty eyes from across the train car.

Then, he is back in the windowless room. The clang of the doors closing is deafening, shaking him out of the memory, and everyone stands there in silence.

He leans against the wall and sucks in a deep breath, holds it, then exhales. A shower will be nice, he thinks lightly; he doubts the water will be warm, but any chance to cleanse himself a little will be welcomed. He misses things like swimming, or playing in the river, or even just drinking clean water. He smiles. His sister once dumped a bucket of ice on his head; he thinks that would be welcome too, if the guards simply tossed ice into the room. Anything but the slowly-building heat.

A few people shout something in German, or maybe it was Polish and he doesn't know the words; a few people scrambled toward the walls until someone's shrill yell cuts off with a harsh bout of choking, coughing sounds.

There is a slight silence, filled only with the rustling of people's feet. The silence stretches, then crumples; pandemonium breaks out.

He is shoved against the wall, someone’s elbow harshly meeting his nose. There’s some kind of commotion near the center of the room; a fight? his dazed mind thinks, as he makes his way cautiously to a corner. People are choking, coughing, and gasping; one person falls to the ground, arms flailing.

He feels it in his nose first, a deep and slow burning not unlike the time he accidentally snorted his mother’s powdered peppers, but instead of stopping at his nostrils, it reaches down past his throat and into his lungs, and grips them in an iron fist. Coughing, he presses himself further into the wall.

* * *

“I used to play here.”

It was a lackluster sentence, said in clear Polish with the lack of tone that only a wearied fighter can produce. The man across from him was slim and short-statured, with a shock of ramrod-straight blonde hair.

“Wh-what?” He can’t speak Polish very well, but he does speak it—and welcomes it far better than German at the moment.

“When I was a child. I, like… used to play here. Over there, and there. And there used to be a tree, right there,” he said, gesturing to the middle of the encampment from their vantage point atop the roof, “and I would climb that tree.” He blinks, slowly. “That was a long time ago, though. Obviously.”

Alojzy blinks back in a copy of the movement. “You don’t look old enough,” he said blandly.

The smaller man lets out a short blast of a laugh. “How old am I, anyway,” he scoffs. It isn’t a question, though, and sounds like a mockery, as if the man is laughing at time itself--or disbelieving that such a concept exists. “That’s not totally relevant, anyway.”

He shrugs nonchalantly, placing his feet out in front of him. “Then what is?”

“You’re dying.”

“I was dead a long time ago,” he murmurs softly, spreading his fingers on his knees. “Nobody is alive here.”

“No,” the man murmurs back. “You were alive—y-you  _ are _ alive. Right now. You’re more alive than anyone right now.” His voice barely wavers.

He doesn’t have anything to say back. This mystery man—whoever he may be—has a crisp, starched uniform, well-fitting gloves, with straight hair like wheat and eyes like emeralds. The eyes might not be the “Aryan ideal,” but his skin looked like ivory. No man like this would be killed like an animal, like the rest of his people; but he must be careful, so he still says nothing.

They sit there, the silence stretching on.

The blonde man inhales through his nose, apparently impatient with the lack of conversation. “Do you want to, like, talk about it?”

He glances at him, taken aback. “About what?”

“You’re—” He clears his throat. “You’re dying.” After a moment, he adds mournfully, “I wouldn’t expect you to like it to end this way.”

He snorts. “I was already dead. As soon as I got off the train, I was dead. Everybody was dead." Voice full of scorn, he adds, “I will welcome death better than I did when I walked through those damned gates.”

The other man's eyes narrow. “You were not already dead, and I know it,” he snaps. “You’ve been fighting every day since then.”

He pulls his eyes away from the indignant face. “Sure, Mr. Fancy. Keep telling yourself that so you can justify ignoring it.”

The man—or hardly so, he looks to be more of a teenager—chokes. “Ig-ignoring-? Ignor—” He can’t even force the word past his lips and he shudders slightly. He sucks in a preparatory breath, and the words that emerge are dripping with poison and hardly sound human. “ _ You—how dare you—think I am ignoring what is happening. _ ”

The tone surprises him, but Alojzy recovers, and pulls one knee up to rest his elbow on it casually. “ _ You _ don’t exactly look like a fuckin’ Jew,” he says acidly, “or a Gypsie, or a  _ feygeleh. _ ” He says the Yiddish word as affectionately as he can, letting the familiar tongue slide off his lips.

To his complete shock, the man immediately replies, tone still sharp and cold, in flawless Yiddish. “ _ Dos oyfgabe zayn alts grub. This was always my problem. _ ”

Alojzy blinked owlishly before replying. "You speak Yiddish?"

“Yeh.” The word is short and spoken with a guarded but final tone.

He blinks again, then stares at the horizon. “You don’t look like it.”

“I don’t  _ look _ like… like, a lot of things,” the blonde man says.

He snorted. “I guess. You’re lucky, though--"

“Totally, am I,” he interrupts dryly, narrowing his eyes.

Alojzy makes a disdainful noise. “You aren’t stuck here.” You can die, if you want to. You aren’t dead; you can  _ live _ if you want to. He keeps the words tucked safely behind his tongue.

The blonde man doesn’t answer immediately; he takes a breath several times, as if to speak, only to let it out in a long exhale. Finally, he voices five words. “Ani shema at ha’anashim shelech.”

_ Hebrew _ . He might not speak it  _ natively _ , but it's a welcomed tongue even more than Yiddish, because that--Hebrew--carries much more implications, without a doubt.

He looks, counting his breaths slowly. The man doesn’t blink; just watches him with a somber expression, his lips closed, and his eyes sad but fixed determinedly on his face.

“Who  _ are _ you?” he asks at last.

“Ani Polen,” he says. “I am Poland.” He says it in Hebrew and Polish both.

“Poland?” he repeats.

The blonde man nods.

There is another silence, but it is far more friendly.

“You are Poland?” he asks again, not quite expecting an answer; the question is more of a musing hesitancy.

“I--” The syllable escapes Poland’s lips before he can catch it in his teeth; he shrugs and rolls his eyes, as if debating and deciding that if part of it has slipped out, he might as well commit to the sentence he was about to say. “I’m the nation. Poland.”

He blinks yet again, slowly, uncomprehendingly. “ _ The _ nation of Poland?” He isn’t sure whether to believe him; nations as people is a myth, or a bedtime story, but considering he is sitting atop the roof of a building with its deceptive chimneys billowing death into the air while the whole world is frozen around him, he isn’t quite sure  _ what _ to believe. He was under the impression a nation would be a pert young maiden, what with history books referring affectionately to countries as  _ she _ , after all. “I thought you’d be a girl.”

The man grits his teeth, looking stiffly at him, but begins to look slightly amused and relaxes his jaw. “Am I not enough?” he asks.

Alojzy frowns. “I didn’t say that.”

Poland giggles, then grows somber again. “I saw you, like… when you were born,” he continues, and catches his bottom lip between his teeth. “You were born in Poland just like all my other peoples.”

“Am I Polish?” The question is a sincere one; he has been told he is an animal, a pig, a  _ filthy Jew _ for so long that he had started to believe it. And when he arrived at the camp, he was a tool; not alive, not dead, not even human.

Poland doesn’t respond immediately, but when he does, it breaks his heart. “You were, like, never  _ not _ Polish. I know what they say, but that doesn't matter.”

“But I am a—”

Poland interrupts him with ferocity. “You are Jewish, and you  _ were _ born in  _ Poland _ .  _ They _ may not think so, but you are more Polish than  _ they _ will  _ ever _ be no matter  _ how hard they try. _ Polish Jews are still Poles, not—not— _ ppi-pig—” _ It’s clear he has difficulty pushing the word past his lips; the  _ they _ he mentioned is unquestioned, painfully obvious, and disbelieving wrapped up into one.

“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to,” he murmurs.

“I… have to sometimes,” confesses Poland, quietly, almost at a whisper. “I have to. Germany—Germany makes me. His boss makes me do it.” The change in temperament is particularly noticeable and sudden. Poland’s shoulders shake; if he had a doubt that this was the nation of Poland, the doubt is gone.

Alojzy hesitates, bites his lips, wrings his hands; he doesn’t have words for that. No words, then, he decides, and shuffles closer to Poland, tentatively tucking an arm around his thin shoulders.

He can’t tells if this was the right thing to do, since Poland curls into himself even more, his head down and buried into his arms. He hesitates, then pulls Poland closer to him, his other hand coming to rest on the smaller man’s elbow. “You know, it’s okay. Saying it. If you have to."

Poland’s shoulders jerk. “Tchhhhah,” he spits. “It is. _Totally._ _Not_. Okay," he says, punctuating each of his words forcefully. "What kind of a day is this, when a nation has to _insult_ his own _people_ ,” he snarls, and there is that poison tone again; Alojzy believes his ears this time when they tell him the tone isn’t human. “The things I’ve done—” Poland’s voice hitches before he continues. “The things I’ve _done_ in this war to—to keep _alive_ —I--I--” It’s painfully obvious that Poland is suddenly--frantically--flitting from the urge to scream to the urge to cry and back again, and Alojzy finds his own eyes stinging sympathetically. The pain is bitter but loud.

He was never one skilled at comfort, but he finds himself murmuring to the smaller man. “You’re brave. You’re brave for doing it, though. I don’t think I could."

Poland shakes his head viciously but doesn’t make a sound and doesn’t look up.

“No, really. I… I am a coward. I cannot fight. I am no soldier. Poland will die if you die.” He can’t die, Alojzy realizes then; he, like me, is not human nor a person, but a tool, around which the Reich must keep an iron grip to keep control.

But Poland had to keep doing it no matter how many people died, he realized with a sick feeling; Alojzy only had to worry about himself.

“That’s… selfish of me,” he muses aloud. His eyes are distant, lost in his thoughts. “I only have to worry about myself, and this is nothing. This place, it does not deserve to be anything.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it was not what happened next: Poland yells, untangles himself from Alojzy’s arms, whirls around. Alojzy can’t see his face, but the sound coming from him is anguished. The nation rears back and lunges, punching the roof as hard as he can. Despite his slim form, Poland clearly possesses more strength than a human of his size; the punch leaves a sizable dent. He pulls back and shouts and punches again with the other hand; again; and pulls his arm back for another, as if intent on pummeling the roof into dust.

Alojzy moves to catch his wrist in alarm, only to find himself ripped away from the edge of the roof and catapulted a good fifteen feet with the swing of his punch. The building is wide, though; he has no chance of falling off the other edge. His head is pounding as he grimaces, slowly pulling himself to his feet.

Poland is frozen. His arm is still raised, his eyes the size of saucers; his lips part as he takes quick, shallow, gasping breaths. “I—”

“Not your fault,” Alojzy spits out hastily, rotating his shoulder from where he landed. “I probably shouldn’t grab someone’s arm when they can punch a hole in a building.” He nods at the roof at Poland’s feet.

Poland looks down numbly; the dent has widened to a crater and looks dangerously ready to collapse. His arm drops, and he looks blank.

Alojzy darts over and grabs Poland’s shoulders. “Hey.”

Poland says something incomprehensible, turning his face away and plops to a sitting position.

“What?”

“I’m not. Not brave. Not like you,” Poland says,voice sounding a bit raw, and shoves a hand at his face to rub his eyes with shaking hands.

“I told you, I’m a coward. I’m dead.”

“Not yet, you’re not. I’d feel it,” Poland says automatically, and immediately regrets allowing those words to escape him.

Alojzy eyes Poland hesitantly. "Poland, can you… do you feel everyone who—” The impact of what Poland has said weighs on Alojzy’s chest. He doesn’t know numbers, but the amount of death he has seen is not small. “Poland, I—”

“I do not  _ need _ your pity,” the nation grumbles. His tone is sharp, but far,  _ far _ more affectionate than the inhuman poison he reserved for the- for _ them _ . “Anyway, you’re braver than I am any day," he mutters, changing the subject.

Alojzy blinks once again. “No I’m not.”

“You said you weren’t a soldier, didn’t you?” Poland wipes his eyes and sighs, having regained some control of himself for the present. “Then... like, why do you think I'm  _ here _ ?” The question hangs between them, almost tangible for a moment.

“You don’t visit every Pole when they die?” A slight thrill runs through him as he refers to himself as Polish. It has been a while since he has been able to say he is anything, let alone with conviction.

Clearly, that wasn’t the best thing to say, however, and Alojzy regrets it as Poland’s face tightens. “No. I don’t have enough… time to do so.”

“Oh.” Another silence; Alojzy shuffles his hands awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Poland says wearily, with the air of a seasoned general that sounds odd coming from someone who looks like a teenager. “I know what you meant.”

They sit and look out over the buildings at the sun, which glistened orange and tempting beyond the horizon.

“I’m not a soldier, though, you know." Alojzy kicks his legs absentmindedly. “I could never be in the army. I don’t think I have what it takes to go into battle.”

“I don’t mean a soldier on the battlefields,” Poland says, his voice quiet but perfectly clear. “You got up, every day, and went out there. When your mind and heart were screaming at you to stop, to give up, you didn’t. You got up. And you went out there. And you refused to die. You always refuse to die. You have—” Poland’s small monologue is interrupted by a hacking cough; when he recovers, he continues to speak, sounding slightly hoarse. “You have not ceased to impress me with that. Your entire train-group—there is hardly, like, two people left. And one of them.” Poland’s face twists. “ _ One _ of them—”

“Joined  _ them _ ,” Alojzy guesses, interpreting the increasingly poisonous tone. “He volunteered as a guard.”

Poland nods silently, then clears his throat. “I shouldn’t be as mad at him as I am,” he says in a forcedly casual tone, “considering what I have done. But I… can’t help it.” He looks into the distance for a moment, then shrugs. “But you,  _ you _ have continued against all odds. You haven’t died. You just… kept going, no matter what they threw at you.” He turned his head to look at Alojzy. “I don’t even know how you’ve done it.” His face is bleak, but almost reverent; it is a strange combination. “You just… keep going. No bravado, no totally dramatic declarations of hope or determination. You just get up, go to work, and… just keep going.”

Alojzy twists his fingers together idly. “I, uh… not really,” he says blandly.

Poland doesn’t say anything, but arches one pale, slender eyebrow questioningly.

“You don’t get it,” he says tiredly, running a hand over his scalp (he forgets with surprising frequency that he doesn’t have hair;  _ they _ shaved it all off). “When I’m down there, I don’t feel  _ anything _ . Except desperation and… and cowardice. Going out there and doing something  _ was _ giving up! I can’t tell you  _ how _ many times I just wanted to—wanted to  _ end _ it all!” he growls, frustrated. “You’re just  _ stuck _ , doing the same thing every day, with no breaks, no real food, no companionship, no—no nothing. I’m just… afraid to die.”

Poland snorted. “Fear isn’t bad, soldier,” he says. “Don’t you know? Fear is a superpower.”

It was now Alojzy’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Poland chuckled.

“A very wise man once told me that, you know,” he said. “I thought he was, like, totally a bag of cats or whatever, at the time,” he said, using phrase which made no sense whatsoever to Alojzy, but Poland didn’t seem to mind. “Run faster, jump higher... There's a whole laundry list the old bat listed off." Poland eyes him. “ _ You _ can even cheat death, apparently.”

It took a moment for Alojzy to process what he said. “But,” he blustered. “I haven’t been brave,” he said, “if I am overtaken by fear. I let my fear get the better of me. Even when I wanted to just lie there and let them kill me, I can’t stand the pain, or my body can’t, and it does things without me telling it to. I don’t  _ want _ to live like a—like a p-pi—” Apparently, Poland’s inability to say certain things was contagious.

“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to,” Poland parroted, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Alojzy felt the wild urge to laugh—it felt almost foreign. “Anyway,” Poland continued, “fear is not the opposite of being brave. It’s, like, the cause of it.”

Alojzy tilted his head.

“You, like… push  _ through _ the fear,” Poland explained. “That is brave. I don’t push through the fear. I lay down and do what’s told to me like a  _ good _ little Hü—”

Alojzy can hear the poison leaking into his voice again, and doesn’t let him finish the word. “ _ Polen, _ ” he says, and his voice is firm despite the tightness in his chest. “You’re not. You’re doing what you have to, so you and your…” He trails off for a moment, gnawing on his tongue, then continues almost hesitantly. “ _ Our… _ ? Our people…?” and Poland looks up with a vulnerable expression, smiles, and nods his approval. Alojzy examines his face and tries to memorize the expression; he nods in return. “ _ Our _ people,” he says with finality. “You  _ need _ to do this, Poland. Yo— _ our _ ,” he catches himself before he finishes the word, “people need you.”

Poland’s eyes flick to him, then at the front of his shirt, then at his shoes; they flick to the crater still in the roof, then to the chimneys, and finally to the sun in the far distance. “Um, I am failing my people,” the nation says distantly. “You all are being killed off like, like flies. If I speak out, I will…” He trails off. “I don’t know, actually. That’s what makes it totally horrid. I don’t know what will happen if I speak out. I am a nation; I can't be killed in normal manners.”  He sighs heavily. “I don’t think they  _ will _ kill me. Torture me, maybe,” he says with a dry laugh, “but I am already being tortured. I can feel the gas tearing your lungs apart,” he states bluntly, head lolling onto his shoulder to look at Alojzy. “I can feel the children in there screaming for their mothers, their fathers. I can hear the old men praying as if it is in my head. I even feel the strains of the parents’ arms as they hold their children up near the ceiling, trying to keep them away from the death air.” He sighs again, and Alojzy can almost see him trying to shut it out.

“It doesn’t work, though," he says dully. "They all die and a part of me dies with them. I am all of you,” he says, holding his arms out, “and you are all of me.” His voice falls quieter. “Sometimes… Sometimes I can feel the people who do it, too. Who push everyone in the chambers. Some of them are scared, too. And some of them—” He chokes. “Some of them  _ like  _ it,” he forces out, his lips forming an ugly snarl. “And I can  _ feel _ —” He cuts himself off almost violently; he refuses that part, will not take part in it, will not touch it, will not even say it. “ _ You _ are all I have. Germany—no, not Germany, not Ludwig,” he says, and Alojzy guesses he is talking about the nation-person; he wondered idly what sort of terrors the German nation is going through.

“The  _ Reich _ ,” Poland spits, jerking him out of his reverie, and the amount of venom the small nation manages to inject into the single word is incredible; it makes Alojzy grateful that this small but fierce and passionate nation is on his side. “ _ They _ have taken my land. They are taking my people. I do not want to die, Alojzy.”

It is the first time Poland has said his name aloud; he doesn’t question how the nation knows it. Somehow, odd as it may be to say, it seems Poland has never _not_ known.

“Alojzy, I want to be like you.”

Alojzy gulps, and stares at him.

Poland stares back flatly.

Finally, Alojzy clears his throat and asks why.

“You will not die,” Poland says, and this time, his tone is moderate but full of respect. “You won’t die. I don’t know why or how or—or anything, but, like…” He struggles with the right words. “You do what they tell you to but you don’t  _ obey _ ,” he says finally. “You never  _ obey _ them. There is always an air of ‘I am doing this for myself’ in your actions.”

Alojzy seriously doubts this, considering he doesn't seem to be in charge of his actions most of the time anymore, but he reasons that now isn't the best time to debate the matter. “Then do these things for  _ yourself _ , Poland,” Alojzy tells him seriously. His face is grave. “I-- if I'm not already dead, I am going to die today. I don’t know how I’m talking to you, or why, but that is a fact.” He isn't sure he's alive, but he suspects the best word might not be  _ dead _ any more.

“I can’t—”

“ _ Yes, _ ” he mutters, then clears his throat and repeats, “ _ yes _ , you  _ can. _ ” He reaches out and grabs Poland’s shoulder. “You  _ can _ . You never couldn’t. If I can,” he states, “then why not you? I am part of you. I am Polish. I am Jewish. You are Poland; you are part of me as I am to you.”

Poland slides a thumb over his eye. “I don’t feel right, though,” he mumbles after a moment. “It doesn’t feel right, doing what they say.”

Alojzy does actually laugh this time. “Do you think it would ever feel right?” he asks, and Poland’s mouth twists and puckers. “I don’t see myself as brave; I see you as brave. You don’t see yourself as brave; you  _ somehow _ —” he draws the word out in a humor he didn't know he had any longer—“see me as brave instead.” He shrugs. “Um… Be me when I’m gone.”

Poland makes a weird noise in his throat. “What?”

Alojzy shrugs again, ducking his head, then flicking his eyes to Poland's face. “Be. Me. When I’m gone.”

Poland’s eyes are fixed on his face intently; they are standing now, facing each other head-on. “Do you think I can?” he asks, his voice small—almost like a child’s.

Alojzy nods. “I am Polish. I am…” He frowns, not wanting to wear out the reverie or emotion tied to the phrase. He clears his throat with conviction. “I am  _ proud _ to be Polish,” he finishes.

Poland rubs his eye again. “I can’t be you,” he protests, but his voice is weak. “I don’t know how.”

“When I’m laying there,” Alojzy says, “lying in my bed, I want to stay there. I want to stay there and get beaten and killed.” Poland flinches at his words, but he keeps going. “I don’t want to get up. I’m exhausted. I couldn’t get up on my own if I tried.” He sighs, heavily. “But my body won’t agree with me. I don’t know where my body gets the energy from,” he admits, “but it is seemingly endless. Or perhaps I take in the energy people give me,” he muses, “from things like beatings, because I always seem to have the most energy then.” He nods; that makes an odd sense. “It isn’t me doing those things,” he says, “or it doesn’t feel like it is, because my body just sort of…  _ does _ it.”

Poland is watching him closely as he speaks, taking in every movement of his eyes, and every minute detail in his face.

“Or I could just be an idiot,” Alojzy mutters quickly, rubbing the back of his neck, awkward with the scrutiny. Poland shakes his head vigorously.

“Not a chance, soldier,” he says, and his voice is so firm that it makes Alojzy want to stand up a bit straighter.

Poland suddenly breaks into another hacking cough; Alojzy seizes his shoulders again, supporting him. “Poland?”

Poland croaks, “You are dying, Alojzy,” and Alojzy remembers—the windowless room, the gas, and a faint but cloying smell of almonds.

“That’s right—” he begins, but he never manages to finish the sentence, because it is then that Poland seizes the front of his shirt, lunges forward, and kisses him strongly.

Alojzy has never been kissed by another man, save for a peck on the cheek from relatives, if one could even count that. He finds he doesn’t mind it, actually, and it is not actually that different than kissing a woman. Alojzy never had a wife, but he courted a few women in the times when he could.

Poland presses his lips closer for a moment, then slowly releases his shirt, leans back, and sucks his lips inward as if chewing on them, looking a bit odd.

Alojzy touches Poland’s shoulder, a rush of dread pushing its way into his body. “Poland,” Alojzy begins, but his voice falters. Poland’s eyes glisten. “Poland, there are so many things I wish I could—wish I could tell you,” he says lamely, but Poland laughs and the sound is musical.

“I, like... probably already know, Alojzy,” he says, his expression softer than Alojzy has seen it.

“But there’s so many other things,” he protests, “so many times I could have said--truly and bravely said that I am Polish and I am a Jew; I am a Polish Jew and... and of  _ both _ those things I am very proud,” he said. It's getting harder to breathe, and he can tell their time is almost up. “But I didn’t. I wish I could make up for those times,” he says.

Poland rests his hand on the back of Alojzy’s head. “Shh,” he says gently. “If you had spoken, you would not have made it here,” he said, “and Alojzy… oh, Alojzy, I am glad,” he says, “you are a soldier of my country and the Jewish people.” The words make Alojzy want to cry. “You have fought hard and dear for me and for your people all over the world,” Poland says haltingly but gently. “I am so proud of you and I—” Now Poland’s voice hitches. “Alojzy, I will make you proud. I’ll make you proud. I will be you when you are gone. I’ll be the totally amazing, most stubborn-assed Alojzy you’ve ever seen,” he says, making Alojzy laugh.

“Good,” he says, “and take this stubborn independence my body seems to have with you. Perhaps it will come into good use,” he says, and his eyes crinkle. “I don’t think I’ll need it any longer.”

Poland’s shoulders jerk and he stifles his voice quickly, regaining his composure before speaking. “Alojzy, you’ve earned a good rest, you know,” he says. “I think—”

Alojzy can feel the gas invading his nose, his lungs, his eyes. “Poland—”

“It’ll be okay,” Poland says, and his voice sounds desperate. “Alojzy—”

“Yeah?” Alojzy coughs; he feels he can barely speak, and his vision has started to fade alarmingly fast.

“Feliks,” Poland says. “Feliks Łucasiewicz,” he says. “That’s my name.”

Alojzy tilts his head, a little confused as to why Poland is saying this now. “Okay—”

“Hey! Don’t interrupt!” Poland—Feliks?—barks insistently, and Alojzy gets a brief flash of what he supposes must be non-war Poland; he must be pretty cheeky, Alojzy thinks, smirking slightly.

“Anyway! My name! Do you want it?”

Again, Alojzy takes a moment to process. “What?”

“My name! I am Poland and so are you! If I am to be you, you can be me too!”

Alojzy blinks; then smiles at the absurdity of it. “Uh… sure. Why not.” He smiles. “Alojzy.”

Poland giggles. “Feliks,” he says slyly. “Fe—Feliks, Alojzy, just—don’t worry, okay? It’ll be okay.”

Alojzy is losing consciousness now; he can’t tell if he’s still on the roof or in the windowless room. “Okay,” he agrees hazily; he can’t remember to what, though, and there’s an odd feeling like an elephant sitting on his chest. His lungs feel like sandpaper every time he draws in a breath.

_ Is this Heaven? _ he thinks brazenly. The teachings of Judaism on the afterlife are strange but interesting. One interpretation--Alojzy's favorite--is that one person’s heaven is another person’s hell, and therefore can be the same place. A person wishing to learn would find everlasting solace in an eternal classroom, with a plethora of wise teachers, while an impatient and less-inclined person would find everlasting, torturous boredom.

_ Odd, though _ , he thinks,  _ how it still hurts to breathe. Is it a transition period? Does heaven have air? Do I have to learn to breathe differently? _

He feels his body being shuffled around.  _ Am I being moved? I am being moved.  _ His mind finds the idea amusing. Perhaps in heaven there is a waiting period when you die.

Something sharp and uncomfortable digs into his back, however, and he isn’t so sure anymore. Perhaps he has done something wrong, he thinks;  _ perhaps I am meant for a destination less pleasant _ .

Then, he makes the grave mistake of opening his eyes. He can barely see, but he can (very thinly) make out the outline of none other than what appears to be a guarded escort. He can see a shadow moving past; he is on a trolley of some sort, moving down a hallway.

_ Am I dead? _ he thinks. He isn’t so sure anymore; this isn’t what he’d expect the afterlife to be like, and there is no way a guard from that  _ place _ could be here and already acclimated.

… _ I’m still alive. _

_ I’m still alive. _ The realization brings no joy; he knows what the acrid air's smell is from, and panic lances through him like a knife.  _ No. No. This was supposed to be my rest. There isn’t supposed to be any more. I am done. Do you hear me? I am done! I want to be DONE! _

His protests are silent. His body has finally agreed not to move.

_ Oh, now you’ve done it, you dear, dear pathetic mound of flesh— _ his inner voice snarls, trying to cover up the now-crippling waves of fear pushing through his pained body.  _ I want you to move and you won’t; I want you to stay and you won’t; what have I done?! _

He wants to cry as he feels his body moved again. He tries to steel himself for what he knows is to come, but his mental resolve only ever reliably shatters; the effect is worse when he tries to ignore the passing time, but finds himself counting the seconds—excruciating in and of themselves, anticipating a searing heat to burn his flesh to ashes.

The bright light cuts off; he knows what this is. He is in an oven. They are going to cook him like a soufflé, like one of the tarts his mother used to cook each year for Purim. He is going to become a hamentaschen, his battered mind thinks, and his body convulses in a weak, wheezing, manic laugh.

He isn’t sure, but he thinks he feels the temperature begin to climb. Panic sets in again; he furiously wills his body to move, but it will not, and he knows once it has decided it will not budge. His stubbornness to live that Poland so dearly admired will now be his undoing; he finds he can turn his head, slightly, and attempts to thrash back and forth despite the pain that immediately lances up the back of his neck and into his skull. Maybe someone will hear him and shoot him before they burn him; then again, maybe not. These are men who tossed deathly, poisonous air into a room full of invalids, elderly, and children, after all.

_ Feliks! _ his mind cries out.  _ Feliks, oh dear goodness, somebody please help me, Feliks, I don’t want to die like this— _

_ He is back on the roof, but it is different this time; Feliks’ hair is darker, his eyes are sunken, and he is thin, unhealthily so. “I’m not Feliks anymore,” he says hoarsely. “You and I traded names.” _

_ “Alojzy, then!” he yells. “Alojzy, please help me!” _

_ But Alojzy’s eyes are dull and downcast. “I can’t move, though. Your body won’t let me.” _

_ It shouldn’t make sense, but to his tired and battered mind, it does. He doesn’t have anything more to say; he cannot run toward Alojzy, or Feliks, or whatever his name happens to be. He doesn’t have the strength to do anything. The infinite reserves of strength are not his anymore; they never were, he reminds himself, but no matter; he can’t access them anymore. Poland can. _

_ Wait. _

_ Poland. _

_ Poland, please help me. _

_ I don’t care what name you have. You are mine and I am yours. _

_ I don’t want to die like this, Poland. I don’t want to die this way. I have survived when so many others haven’t; Poland, I don’t even want to die at all! But that isn’t possible; if I don’t burn up, my lungs won’t hold any oxygen and my body won’t move. Everything hurts. _

_ Just… please. I’m sorry for all those times I never said I was Polish and Jewish and proud. Just help me so I don’t have to die this way. _

It's a feeble plea, in his mind, but he doesn't care; he's past caring, his mind riddled with pain and beyond the point of logic. It wasn’t in his mind anymore; the temperature was definitely increasing, and he couldn't tell if it was from a flame or not; he could have been on fire and he wouldn’t have noticed.

Suddenly, there was someone on top of him.

He yelped and suddenly his arms worked; he pushed at the person weakly, and hoarsely yelled even more as his hurting fingers grasped the rough material of a uniform.

“Alojzy?”

“ _ Poland _ ?!” His voice was completely incredulous.

“Yes, yeah, it’s me! It’s totally me!” Poland’s voice sounded small and afraid, but fierce; that is bravery, Alojzy thought to himself.

“Poland, what are you doing here?” He wasn’t sure if he was managing to speak out loud, but Poland seemed to hear him all the same.

“Alojzy, you--the  _ gas _ \--you're  _ alive _ ,” Poland said blankly, appalled. His voice sounded distant and surreal. “No one—no one does that.”

“I am one—one—” he wheezed. “One stubborn-assed Alojzy,” he managed.

Poland laughed thinly. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’ve got some pretty big shoes to fill.”

“Yeah, you do, and your feet are  _ tiny, _ ” Alojzy chuckles, coughing, and grinned wildly.

“I’m... sorry it has to end this way,” Poland said suddenly, sounding like his voice was going to break.

“I’m… well... me too,” he forced out. “But I got to… to meet you, yeah?”

Poland grinned; Alojzy felt it rather than saw it. “Yeah, that’s the spirit. Keep your mind on positive things. Silver damn lining.”

Alojzy grinned back. “I wish I could have met you some other time,” he said, his voice as casual as he could make it.

“Me too,” Poland said cheerily. “You’re pretty okay, y’know? Even for a stubborn-ass,” he added, and Alojzy chuckled. “Plus, you’re pretty cute.”

Alozjy blushed. “I, uh—”

“No,  _ no _ , don’t you start getting, like, all awkward on me now, soldier!” Poland barked. “Accept the compliment.”

Alozjy, properly chastised, did his best to nod.

“Good soldier,” Poland said, and Alojzy felt him pat the top of his head. The soft leather of his glove felt good on his skin.

Suddenly, there was a searing pain in his foot, and he stifled a yell. Poland cursed, shifting his weight, and covered Alojzy’s foot with his own. “Sorry about that,” he forced out, and Alojzy could hear the grimace in his voice.

“Poland? What are you—what are you doing—”

“Shh,” Poland said. “You said you didn’t want to die this way, right?”

Alojzy’s jaw locked; time slowed, and it was a moment before he could speak. “You mean—you mean you might be able to… save me?”

The pain in Poland’s voice was evident. “Not… not save, no. You breathed in that gas for too long,” he said, and Alojzy wished he could reach out and wrench the pain away from the nation’s voice. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Alojzy nodded stiffly. “It’s… it’s okay,” he forced out. “I’m… glad I got to meet you, Poland.”

“Alojzy,” said the other man, a slight waver to his voice, as if he was smiling.

“Yeah?”

“No, I mean,  _ Alojzy.  _ Did you forget?”

Alojzy’s brain didn’t quite follow. “What?”

“I’m not Feliks, or Poland right now, for that matter,” he said, as matter-of-factly as possible while enclosed in an oven and about to perish. “I’m Alojzy. Alojzy is the one who’s supposed to die today, remember?”

Alojzy choked on the ash-scented air. “Po-Poland, you can’t be  _ serious _ —”

“Totally so,” said the nation, with an air of cheeriness. “ _ Feliks _ , a part of a nation dies when any of their people die. So… you die for me, and I will die for you.  _ Czynienia _ ?”

Breathless, Alojzy—or Feliks, if he was to take the name of the other man—gasped in a breath. It was an interesting concept. “ _ Deal _ ,” he wheezed, but he wasn’t sure exactly what Poland—or Alojzy, he supposed, for today—meant.

The blonde man reached up and squeezed his nose. It hurt, but not too badly. “Good, then. The temperature’s getting pretty hot in here.”

“Really? I can’t feel any of it—” Realization struck him, and he was suddenly extremely aware of the neutral temperature curiously surrounding his body. “Wait. Wait a moment. Poland, you’re going to be  _ burned up _ —!  _ Poland _ !”

“You already agreed to it,” said the smaller man thinly, petting his face before wrapping his arms protectively around him. “You already said ‘deal.’”

“No. Um. That’s—that’s not what I  _ meant _ ,” he said, and his voice sounded like a plea; he couldn’t move again, and he could feel the tension in the nation’s grip growing.

The smaller man wriggled until he could lay a hand on his chest. “It’s okay, Feliks. I volunteered to be Alojzy today. And you have to keep your end of the bargain.” The temporary Alojzy spread his fingers and pushed down on his chest. “You’ll be me.”

He was suddenly very aware of his heartbeat, the stressed organ still relentlessly churning blood throughout his body— _ just keeping on, _ he thought,  _ just like my body in the mornings. Classic. _

“I don’t want you to get hurt, though,” he protested, but it sounded weak; the small, temporary-Alojzy had already made up his mind, and had resolved to be the most stubborn-assed Alojzy of them all. And Alojzy had, in retrospect, survived quite a bit; he wouldn’t change his mind on this.

So the larger man laid back and breathed. His heartbeat was getting louder; the fingers on his chest were starting to form into claws, and he could feel the air near his elbow—one of the few areas of his body that the nation wasn’t covering, he noticed—heating up past the level of comfort.

“ _ You’ll be me, _ ” muttered the nation, his voice was ringed with determination—a determination comparable, and admirably so, to the stubborn willfulness his body had demonstrated in the fields.

Acutely aware of his heartbeat as he was, he noticed it was beginning to slow; unsure, he tried to look at the nation’s face, but there was no light. He could feel arms tightening around him, though, and the air near his elbow was almost scalding. He couldn’t imagine what the small nation must be feeling, and a pang of regret and sympathy shot through him.

“Stop it,” the nation snapped, his voice grating like gravel. “Trying to concentrate.”

“Sorry,” he said automatically, and went back to concentrating on his heartbeat. The beats were getting slower and slower; whether it was the nation-Alojzy’s doing or not, he wasn’t sure, but it was fascinating to observe. It was as if every pulse detailed an entire… sense of  _ being. _ Like a city.

The air was past scalding now; his elbow felt almost numb. His heartbeat continued to slow, but each pulse became stronger. Alojzy inhaled through his nose, tightened his arms, and breathed out.

“Ready, Feliks?” he asked, and he was amazed at how steady his voice was.

“Ready,” he replied, without hesitation this time. He was part of the other; and the other was part of him; they were one and the same now.

His heartbeat slowed almost to a stop.

“Almost… done,” the nation forced out, his voice cracking. Neither spoke, each one concentrating on their heartbeat.

With a massive effort fueled by sheer determination, the nation shoved him one more time; and with that effort, he wheezed out a breath, took one last look at Feliks, and let himself fall.

Feliks didn’t know which heartbeat would be his last; he took to counting them, one, two, three. That became his sole purpose: counting his heartbeats. Each one was more powerful than the last; and finally, when he wasn’t sure his heart would ever beat again, the last pulse sent an essence of  _ being _ into every cell of his body:

He was in Warsaw, picking up a young girl’s shoe; he was in Kraków, signing papers; he was on the front lines, peering anxiously through the sight on a gun he barely knew how to use; he was in the minds and hearts of the people, all straining to hear the country’s song as it was stifled by the gray, Reich-y ash of the abused and once-powerful—now so, so helplessly lost—German Empire.

_ No, _ he thought, _ Ludwig would not do these things. He must be aching under these losses, too. He must be in pain, _ he thought, and the nation’s knowledge told him exactly who Ludwig was; the stoic man was not a sadist, was not a criminal; he was beaten, however, and his boss had an iron grip on the people he held dear, which kept him in check, which kept him from reaching out to his reluctant conquests: I am here! This is not my idea! I don’t want to do this! But the voice was stifled and suffocated until it could not be heard.

The worst part was the camps; he knew each and every one of the lives that snuffed out like delicate candles in a breeze; all of Poland had felt that breeze, he realized, as he wept and mourned for each of his fallen citizens; he could feel the determination of the rebels, and their dying wishes.

_ I will kill them, _ he thought, and abruptly he knew how the small man could infuse so much disgust and so much hate into his speech; these people were not only bullies but they were so entrenched in what they were doing, so deeply buried in their beliefs, that they did not realize for one second the beautiful lives and futures they had smashed to so many pieces on the sterile, pristine white tile floors of—

He was everywhere at once; and he had been right; the doctor's building had seemed off earlier and he was  _ so very, very right _ in that intuition.

He should have run before the door opened, before he could ever have seen that horrid, artificially constructed mask of a face, with the gap-toothed, deceptive, lying, out-of-place smile.

A scientist will grant a certain dignity in death to the animals that lend their lives to his quest for knowledge; this was not even butchery, for even the butcher wields a knife with more elegance than this debauchery. This was an inhuman defilement of all that Life had to offer, and Feliks yelled, tried to pull himself away from it, but couldn’t; these were his  _ people _ , and suddenly he felt waves of guilt; his people were going through these experiences that he, in all his years, could not even devise a word for, and yet he still tried to selfishly pull away.

He saw himself, as a baby, as a teenager, as a young man; he saw his train ride, and every other train ride, to the camp and every other camp; he saw the fear and desperation and pain and lifelessness in each of their faces, wishing he could reach out to every one of them and speak,  _ you are alive, _ you are  _ so very alive,  _ and you give me strength—more strength than I could ever hope. He wanted to open their mouths and eyes and ears and yell out to them, I am here! This is not my idea, this is not my doing! I don’t want to do this! But just as poor Ludwig’s voice was crushed, so too was his under the millions of people, dying on his land, on his watch, in his mind and in his heart.

Without his notice, something inside himself gave, and he died.

* * *

There was a choking gasp from the bedroom; Feliks shot bolt upright in bed, his hands flying all over his body, checking his hair, his shoulders, all the way to his toes.

Alojzy was dead.

It was a fitting name, Alojzy; the meaning was warrior.

No, not  _ was _ ;  _ is _ . My name is Alojzy, and my name is Feliks, and my name is Poland; I am all of these and I am proud.

The blonde man wheezed, doubled over—the brief respite of being another was gone, and the constant ache, pain, burning, and breaking of his country was back. He chuckled weakly; Alojzy thought dying in his place would  _ hurt _ him.

_ Would have hurt you before this war, _ he thinks, and shrugs the thought away, staring at a stranger in the mirror. No point in dwelling on it. He will not die from this war.

Alojzy will never die, and will always rise from the ashes like a phoenix; every time his people die, he dies, and is reborn again. He had survived that life, and he will survive this one as well; Feliks and Alojzy as one, inseparable; Polish, and Jewish, and proud.

  


**Author's Note:**

> On the history and setting-the Jewish Virtual Library and the Holocaust Research Project have a solemn and well-preserved online library of information. Many of my historical details are taken from those two sources.
> 
> On the language and varying degrees of translation: Alojzy doesn't know certain languages well, so I only gave what I think he'd be able to understand. His native tongue is primarily Yiddish. Please note I do not speak Polish, German, or Yiddish, although I'm familiar with them to varying degrees (none, basic, and very slight respectively), so a fair bit of that is Google Translate.
> 
> Anyway. Thank you for reading, and as always, reviews and constructive criticism is very welcomed!


End file.
